[Sidenote: Sir Launcelot beholdeth a falcon entangled] So Sir Launcelot
watched the falcon, and he beheld that she lit in a tall elm tree, where
she took her perch and rested, balancing with her wings part spread. Then
by and by she would have taken her flight again, but the lunes about her
feet had become entangled around the bough on which she sat, so that when
she would have flown she could not do so. Now Sir Launcelot was very sorry
to see the falcon beating herself in that wise, straining to escape from
where she was prisoner, but he knew not what to do to aid her, for the tree
was very high, and he was no good climber of trees.
While he stood there watching that falcon he heard the portcullis of the
castle lifted, with a great noise, and the drawbridge let fall, and
therewith there came a lady riding out of the castle very rapidly upon a
white mule, and she rode toward where Sir Launcelot watched the falcon upon
the tree. When that lady had come nigh to Sir Launcelot, she cried out to
him: "Sir Knight, didst thou see a falcon fly this way?" Sir Launcelot
said: "Yea, Lady, and there she hangs, caught by her lunes in yonder
elm-tree.
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